Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I have thought about this quite a bit. There is good food in some suburbs, particularly where rents are low and chefs can do good stuff. I don't know the NY suburbs and I do know DC, but I think the economics are probably the same. (SF and SV are weird because SV rents are so expensive.) When food is bad, it's often because the restaurant has high rent and needs to play it safe or because it doesn't serve that many people and needs to play it safe to appeal to more of the people it does serve. Delivery helps with both problems, so it should help suburban restaurants. Suburban Chinese and pizza does often suck, but if you've got more choice then it should get better. Delivery helps urban restaurants too, but not quite as much relatively. The economics of delivery work better where you can get around well by car. All else equal, the city is always going to be better off because the kind of people who want to create good food are more likely to want to be in the city.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Thread (explaining Trump's appeal).

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Before I rise in vigorous defense of my suburb in Northern Virginia, I have to admit that I love urban Washington. A clean city that has all the things on the cultural checklist. The food scene is astonishing. Crime is under reasonable control.

Now then. Two absolute disqualifying factors for me.

It is literally...not figuratively, literally...child abuse to send your children to the DC public schools. This isn't really open to discussion. The schools are wretched, with no improvement in sight.

I have a third of an acre. Because I am very close to the Potomac, I have a remarkable array of wildlife pass through; deer, turkeys, eagles. Washington has a visible surplus of the one creature which, for personal reasons relating to my time in the army in Asia, I loathe with every fiber of my being. Rats. Big ones. Some other time I can explain why this reaches a deeply psychotic level for me. It makes for a good Moth story.

As for my suburb: I live in Mt. Vernon on property once owned by George Washington. The commute is down the Potomac through a long skinny national park. I bought a used Mercedes convertible roadster because...wait for it... I love my commute. I have a seriously high pressure position. Winding down on the way home is a joy.

Our extended neighborhood includes Route 1, which is full of section 8 housing with people who got to America Tuesday. Their children attend the local high school with kids who live in riverfront mansions. There were students from 40 nations when my son went there; the school put a flag of origin in the lobby for each nation that had sent them a student. My son was a remarkable athlete. He played soccer with Africans and South Americans, basketball with African Americans, and swam with the white yuppies. One of those yuppies went to Stanford, the Austrian Olympic Team, and held a world record in the backstroke. So, yes, there was an Austrian flag.

Looking down on strip mall restaurants is a snob's mistake, at least in my neck of the woods. I can get to first generation immigrant food pretty quickly. As to sophisticated fare, I can get to Alexandria in 10 minutes. No, there are not 300 eateries. But I'll bet there are 100, and half of them are really excellent. I can be in DC a few minutes later.

Unlike people who want the convenience of the city, I simply prefer a refuge. I can, like a couple of other people on this Board, walk to a golf course. I haven't played golf since the early 60s. I have a house membership so I can use the bar and grill.

I can walk to two yacht clubs. I belong to the one that consists of a porta-potty, a dock. and a place to store a boat on a trailer. I grew up spending summers on a small island where my blue collar immigrant grandparents retired. They would set me loose with one instruction: Come back with some fish for dinner. I still love the water and I can be at the shore and on the river minutes after I get home.

To sum up: There is no "right answer" to which is better, urban or suburban. I found a spot a long time ago...we've owned the house for 36 years... that gives me the peace I sorely need at the end of the day. If you need to be within walking distance of a venue with the newest this or the hottest that, good for you. Come out and visit me on my front porch. I've got a wine cellar to die for, and my better half developed a taste for sparkling wines when we lived in Brookyln Heights. We can accommodate your refreshment needs. Que the Vivaldi.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

These all suck, but this is just a taste. Here's the unexpurgated version (I'm sure others will even add to this):

- Home maintenance
- Yard maintenance
- People who talk about home and yard maintenance
- See that one above? Here it is again, in bold: People who talk about home and yard maintenance
- Once more, with italics, too: People who talk about home and yard maintenance
- People who read only the local papers
- Parents whose only ventures are travel teams with their kids
- The unironic wearing of football jerseys (this takes place in cities, too, but usually only near stadiums, or in blockhead neighborhoods)
- The homeowner's association
- McMansions with the "Texas Arch" (useless two story, two column, domed portico fronting domed window... to give you an unobstructed view of the chandelier hanging from their two story, but only 12 x 12 foyer)
- Homes brick or faux stone fronted, but coated in siding on the sides and back
- Having to Uber everywhere because every good bar/restaurant is a DUI concern
- Having to even think about filling the car with gas
- No late nite bodega of any value
- Shoveling snow/getting driveway plowed
- Good luck finding a good tailor
- No good mens clothing stores
- Keeping up with Joneses home competition ("We have an outdoor popcorn oven, and this custom cabinet holds our collection of various wine aerators! Have I shown you the hand carved crown-molding in the dust room? It's right here, just off the mud room, next to the children's theatre.")

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Until you mentioned the Heights you might have moved T a bit, but you sunk yourself there{sad face}

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I live in the burbs. I live in the town my wife grew up in, and near a lot of her family, and that's why I live in the burbs. But there is one thing that will never be fixed in the burbs.

They are full of suburbanites. Everywhere you look, there is another fucking suburbanite.

These people do their kids homework for them, because they care how they do not what they learn. They compare shit endlessly. Homes, cars, snowblowers, boob jobs. Who they know. Who they want to know. What they watch on TV. And they all seem to have been made at the same factory.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Good list, but I just want to make sure you know the current thing is outdoor pizza ovens. You've got to have an outdoor wood fired pizza oven.

I'm thinking of this one, and having a little brick base built for it. What do you think?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Well, Hank, technically, I lied. We lived across the street from the formal area of "Brooklyn Heights", at the corner of Adams and Tillary. We were across the street from the EDNY Courthouse. If you turned onto Adams in front of our place, you went over the bridge to Manhattan.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

In college I tutored maths. When I tutored white suburban kids, the moms wanted to make sure I oversaw/did the homework. I tutored a 5th grade black girl in the heart of Lansing (not big city, but urban in any definition you might throw out). Her mom wanted me to do the homework. If you don't think average people in the average city don't compare phones/shoes/clothes, you simply don't know people in cities.

Reading through all of this, I can summarize as follows: Thurgreeds points, and some of Sebby's (Uber? That actually makes the burbs closer to a city, but whatever) are accurate AS TO THEIR CITIES. Detroit for decades had an 8 Mile road imaginary barrier. White people did not venture in for entertainment much. The suburbs here had better restaurants until the last 5 years. Immense changes have happened, and Detroit is a great restaurant city now.

But the thing with Detroit, and DC (due to Metro) is getting into the city is easy. I live at 10 mile Road. I can be in Detroit Midtown after a 10 minute drive. From Alexandria Va. I can be in DC within a half hour.

I don't know about Boston/Suburbs, but you can't get from one Philly suburb to another in a half hour. The entire suburban area is fucked with traffic. And I have no idea how one gets to NYC's suburbs. I stay in the city when I have meetings in Hartford. I don't try to drive. I have someone drive me. We are going against traffic and it is super fucked up. No way would i make that commute.

So, Apples/Oranges.

All that said, for me my favorite place to stay is the UWS. I can get to the street and walk to almost everything I want to do every day. If not there is the subway. And the best part of every day's experience (and ofter the worst) is that walk/ride. That's why it is strange to hear about delivery being a plus? Perhaps T is getting sick of the crowds, and will be scouting out New Jersey homes in the near future?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Go back and edit to "DUMBO before anyone knew what that meant." Brooklyn Heights was already Brooklyn Heights when The Patty Duke Show was on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIzGzFmCVqM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Outdoor popcorn oven. Ha. Nice. My former hipster friend has an outdoor pizza oven that she won't stop talking about.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Ticky tacky, and they all look just the same... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vogayV8MHz8

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

That one looks perfect! It appears uniquely designed to suck the joy out of pizza.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I forgot just how fucking brilliant that intro was.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Have you talked to anyone about their generator lately? Steel yourself for the discussion should you see it approaching... You're in for a spontaneous orgasm. "Seven hours without refueling the diesel??? Oh, my God!!! Your Riesling refrigerator stayed exactly 47.5 degrees through the entire power outage??? I need to fetch new trousers!!!"

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Agreed. I didn't know it was a Pete Seeger tune. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwUp-D_VV0

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

My wife had some affinity, without having really looked closely, for that type of house and it's a good thing they generally were not in our price range (in part because we don't need that much house). But the idea can start to get tempting when you look at house after house of the older variety that doesn't that's short a bathroom, bedroom or whatever.

These days Minneapolis in the midst of re-doing it's long term master plan, which includes whether we should keep allowing those things to replace our existing housing stock - and sell at $500k plus - or whether we should also allow similar structures with 2-4 units in them. If there's going to be something bigger next to me, I'd prefer that it be able to accommodate multiple families, but there's a whole lot of "liberal" fear in opposition.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Yup. Ahead of his time.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I like the design. You could invite nosy neighbors, watch them get loaded to salve their jealousy at your superior purchase, and then perhaps fall against a metal portion of the oven, leaving themselves a permanent burn scar.

"Khaki! What happened to your face!!!"

"Carter, it was awful! I forgot to eat after pilates, had some white gluten free sangria at the Smiths, and fell onto their pizza oven!"

"Pizza oven?"

"I just got botox!!! It's ruined!!!"

"Who designed it? Did it have slate base? Stone? Brick?"

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Back when we first built our house, I decided to have a little Bar-B-Q to celebrate. Being a rural boy from the styx, I, of course, dug my own Bar-B-Q pit, a nice sort of 6 foot by two foot hole in the ground surrounded by concrete block with the wood piled high and then burned down into coals. It was a think of beauty, and I laid out our oven racks on top for grilling up some birds.

First question from all the neighbors: is that permanent?

But, really, I may get that pizza oven for my wife for mothers day. I've gone native.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Sure, make fun of the burbs. Easy pickings. So back at ya:

Have you been to Chef Booboo's latest place? Of course you haven't. It doesn't have a name. It's in an alley under the Highline with an unmarked door. You have to be invited as a follower of Chef's blog, and use blockchain codes to unlock the door.

Upon entering, the staff hoses down the arriving guests and leads you to your table. You are presented with a cocktail. Currently, the offering is a smoked organic Japanese whisky with whale snot flambé.

There is no menu. Chef prepares the dishes according to the season, and the availability of fresh ingredients. The first course when I was last there was an homage to Chef's roots in Moldova. I mean really, the appetizer was roots. The ginseng shavings were a revelation!

Next, Chef pan sears peat moss, lichens, and Moldovan insects, and stuffs the resulting porridge into a sparrow's anus. The wine pairing brought out the gamey yet subtle floral notes of the dish.

I could go on, but I'm late for my eyebrow threading and a colon blow. Talk soon!

The foregoing makes me believe I've got a little time on my hands before that 3:00 conference call.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I'm just giving you shit about the pizza oven. Everyone should be cooking pizza all the time. Indoors, outdoors on the grill, outdoors in their stainless steel pizza over from Sur La Table, wherever and however. I support all of it. Are you making gluten-free pizza with cashew cheese? I'll pass, but support you in your pizza-making endeavors. And if you don't want to make pizza, but just want to heat up a frozen one in your oven late night? I support that too.

Pizza.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Pizza was invented in Southern Italy, and today its true meaning is protected by the AVPN http://www.pizzanapoletana.org/en/chi_siamo which tests and trains pizza makers to make sure they are meeting the actual strict standards it maintains. Do you or ggg claim linensure? Because otherwise you might be putting meat, cheese and tomato sauce on crust, but you are hardly making pizza.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

As far as those things go, that is a very sleek design. If you're going to do it, that looks like one of the best ways.

But one thing I don't get about those ovens is, the pizza seems dry. I like greasy pizza. Big slices, cheese and oil dripping off the sides. The pizza oven stuff seems dehydrated to me. It's not bad. Just missing that greasy pizza-joint flavor.

ETA: This reminded me of one more maddening thing about the suburbs: Food wasting.

Every party must involve twenty different dishes, many brought by guests. All portions are huge (the shrimp tray has it own zip code, and the crudite eats up half the kitchen island). And nobody eats any of it (I believe, paralyzed by the paradox of choice: "I'd like a donut hole. But I can't decide which coconut variant of the 17 offered is the best choice, and I don't want to look like a neophyte. Maybe I'll just take a bite of one of the fourteen plates of Humboldt Fog. But... which one is the best?")

Because every children's party needs to have 740 crab claws. And a 1/1000th size Mayan pyramid of melon balls. Like edible assortments? Well, there's one in every room. Nothing like a houseful of kids running around on cream carpeting with massive genetically engineered franken-strawberries covered in chocolate.

And we haven't even ordered the 37 pizzas for the kids yet!

Would you like a craft beer? You look like a craft beer kind of guy. There's a metal bathtub in the gazebo filled with a six pack of each of the 48 varieties of Sam Adams... and something called Landshark. Looked like fun! Drink up. The wife and I are wine drinkers. We're just going to throw away what's left... Or at least what'll fit in the front-end loader we use to clean up after these things!

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Thank you. That was a revelation.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Gluten-free man'oushe will probably be the most common use. Any cheese used will be real.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

A certain amount of this is fine, but what you sayin about Japanese Whiskey, man?!?!

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Low quality cheese is the easiest way to up the grease level.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I actually put that in especially for you, since on your recommendation I picked up a bottle of Suntory at a closeout sale. It holds its own with all but the peaty goodness of Lagaluvin.

And if I'm not mistaken , there is no "e" in (Suntory)Japanese whisky.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

When you die, you are going to hell. In that hell, there will only be one meal. Pizza. The pizza will always be made exactly the same. It will consist of a gluten-free English Muffin topped with Ketchup and a single slice of non-dairy American Cheese substitute, cooked for an insufficient amount of time in a toaster oven that smells of burnt plastic.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I'm always putting an e where it doesn't belong.

I'm about to finish off a bottle of Hakushu 12 year I've been nursing for a while, and need to invest in some Japanese whisky so I have some on hand. I liked the Hakushu quite a lot, the little sweetness in it was very nice. But recommendations welcome, its time to try a new one.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Make some burnt wine.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

When I lived in the city (pre-kids), I told my best friend to shoot me if I ever moved to the 'burbs. He hasn't shot me yet, but he constantly brings it up.

Some suburbs in established cities (like NYC, Chicago and Boston) don't look like suburbs at all. They look like towns ("Anytown, USA Jerry - Oh you gotta mulch. You got to"), with a town center and independent restaurants. No strip malls. You know this.

I can walk to several bars and restaurants, and some of them are actually pretty good. Before I moved out of the city, I thought all suburbs looked like Atlanta's suburbs (which are truly awful).

That being said, I can't find good Chinese anywhere out here, and in the city I could fall down on the sidewalk and find myself in a good cheap Thai place. Same with sushi.

One of my neighbors is Australian. He smokes a pipe and wears a smoking jacket. He's basically the personification of a Wes Anderson movie. Talking to him is like being on another planet.

You will never understand the joy of using a powerwasher. It's very cathartic.

I don't know a single person in my 'burb who voted for Trump, which probably means I live in a liberal bubble.

I walk my kids to school every day. Sometimes we ride our bikes to the farmers market or local candy shoppe.

This is annoying but some of them have fantastic asses.
Malls are indeed terrible.

I interact with my neighbors so much more in the suburbs versus when I was in the city. There's a lot of sharing, borrowing and watching out for each other's kids. Some of the kids are dicks, but most aren't.

Now, we don't have a ton of diversity - I'll admit that. Well, we do have both protestants AND catholics.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Semi-related, if you've not switched the cheese on your caprese salad (i eat a lot of those) from mozzarella to burrata, make the shift. Mmmmmmm. So rich.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Agree on Chinese but disagree on pizza.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Was it Neko Case?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Obviously, don't develop a habit of buying this. But when your spouse's business partner offers this at a dinner, drink half of it.

https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskie...ar-old-whisky/

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

If we are doing this then I recommend Casa Dragones for sipping tequila. Even the blanco is good.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

This is false. It depends on the school.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I suspect that TM is the only person here who lives in a city larger than the one I do, but like Adder I live in a part of it that is almost all zoned for single-family homes with yards, which means that the population density is suburban. I'm no fan of it. I move to where I am because it was super convenient to a job that I no longer have, and now I'm stuck there because I don't want to move my kids to another school unless I have to. The thing I like the least is that the suburban population density means you have to drive everywhere, and makes for less interesting businesses and restaurants. So much of what other people are saying flows from that. Everyone wants their own little yard so their neighbors aren't next door, but when everyone has that little yard and the zoning doesn't permit the construction of apartments or other denser housing, then there you are. I don't think suburbanites are inherently boring, but (particularly when you have kids) it gets harder to figure out how to connect withthe interesting ones. As TM said, spending time trying to make conversation with other parents on youth sports teams is one of the lower circles in Dante's Inferno. That was similarly true when I lived in a city, though.